ALL OUR LOST CENTENNIALS PAST

Can someone please explain why we will be celebrating Santa Rosa’s sesquicentennial on September 9, 2018? Because on that day 150 years ago, absolutely nothing happened here.

I suppose that date was selected because Sept. 9 is also Admission Day and a legal state holiday, like César Chávez Day (as Chávez was a great champion of education, it drives me nuts that we celebrate his birthday by closing libraries as well as state offices). While our 1850 statehood certainly was a noteworthy event, I seriously doubt the city was otherwise planning to throw a 178-year anniversary party.

But my gripe isn’t really with that chosen day and not particularly with the month – we could celebrate the sesquicentennial year anytime between January and December. No, it’s the year that rankles, because if you drill down to the core, we’re actually commemorating a 1968 PR event which cheered that much of historic Santa Rosa was being destroyed in the name of progress.

Before we get to 1968, some historic background is in order:

It all really started in 1854, as explained earlier in “CITY OF ROSES AND SQUATTERS.” Santa Rosa didn’t really exist as the year began; it had only two houses and five little businesses including a tavern. Yet despite its drawback of being almost non-existent, a group of men were about to make it the county seat.

After the state legislature gave approval for a vote on moving it away from Sonoma, Julio Carrillo and the other Santa Rosa promoters invited the entire county to an epic Fourth of July party that went on all night. The election was held September 6 and Santa Rosa won. When the voting results were announced there was another BBQ feast even more riotous than the July shindig, this event supposedly lasting two days.

Afterwards the Board of Supervisors met with “the proprietors of the town of Santa Rosa” (Carrillo, Hartman, Hahman and Hoen) who promised to build a courthouse and provide spaces for county officers within two months, with everybody crowding into Carrillo’s place until then. The vote was certified by the Supervisors and the county records were moved to Santa Rosa.

There are three points to remember for the test: Nothing happened on September 9 of that year, either. Although Santa Rosa was now the county seat, it was still just the self-declared name of a crossroad settlement and not an officially recognized town. And not the least of it, there was lots’o partying by our ancestors in 1854 because they clearly believed all this was a significant event.

The other historic date was March 16, 1868, when the state approved Santa Rosa as an officially incorporated town. Here’s how Santa Rosa’s newspaper covered this milestone:

Sonoma Democrat notice of incorporation

That’s it – three itty-bitty lines (1½ actually) in the column of local news briefs. An item lower down the column which praised a new saloon in town, “The Snug,” was five times longer. Needless to say, there was no blowout incorporation BBQ.

Let’s zoom forward to the first big anniversary: Fifty years after Santa Rosa became the county seat.

“This is Santa Rosa’s Golden Jubilee Year – Should Have a Big Celebration,” read a Press Democrat headline in March 1904.

A fifty year anniversary is also called a “semicentennial,” and for reasons unknown there was no celebration at all; it could be because 1904 was a major election year both locally and nationally, with emotions running high. In Santa Rosa the “Old South” conservatives lost their grip on the town to Teddy Roosevelt progressives after months of shrill newspaper editorials on both sides; it seemed half the town wasn’t speaking to the other half. What we did get on the Sept. 21 anniversary was a very reliable history of the 1854 events in the PD, including a first-hand account from Jim Williamson on how the county records were moved, as explored here in “THE FABLE OF THE STOLEN COURTHOUSE.”

In March 1918 came the 50th anniversary of incorporation. No ceremony that year either, nor a single mention of it in the newspapers, as far as I can tell. They had a great excuse, however; the U.S. had entered WWI less than a year before and Santa Rosa – like every other place in the country – was preoccupied with war rallies, bond drives and all other things patriotic.

Okay, so Santa Rosa (mostly) ignored both golden jubilees in the early 20th century; I don’t think we should make too much of that, given the distractions mentioned here, plus that our society generally doesn’t put on the party hats for 50 year anniversaries. But centennials are usually a big deal, right? Right?

Thus in 1954 it was exactly one hundred years after Santa Rosa came into existence – plus hosting two legendary bacchanals, drawing its first map of the place and settling into its role as the hub of Sonoma county. All of that was memorable, and the Press Democrat offered several articles on the centennial…of the Mare Island shipyard. Not one word about their hometown’s 100 years.

Our consistent indifference to the past changed on Sept. 19, 1967, when Thomas Cox suggested, “we should make something of it” at a Flamingo Hotel luncheon. “It” would be the 1968 centennial of incorporation.

ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1854, SUPERVISORS OF COUNTY DECLARED THIS THE COUNTY SEAT

Historical Year in Santa Rosa and a Brief Glimpse of the History Connected with the Change

This is a year of historic importance in Santa Rosa, it is her golden jubilee year.

Santa Rosa should in some appropriate manner celebrate September 18, 1904, that date being the golden jubilee of the city’s existence as a county seat. On September 18, 1854, fifty years ago. the Supervisors of Sonoma county met in the City of Sonoma and having canvassed the votes polled at the election held to determine the matter, officially declared that Santa Rosa was legally the county seat of Sonoma county and after this formal action the county archives were brought to Santa Rosa in a four-horse wagon, and with them came the now venerable ex-Supreme Judge McKinstry, then district judge of Sonoma.

The final event of any importance in the county of Sonoma in the year 1854 was the passage of Bennet’s bill authorizing the taking of a vote on the question of transferring the county seat from Sonoma to Santa Rosa. As the summer of that year half a century ago advanced, the fight between the partisans of the contending cities became very keen and finally the citizens of Santa Rosa made big arrangements for holding a barbecue on the Fourth of July. In speaking of the occasion the late Robert A. Thompson said;

“It was a master stroke of policy — the people came and saw, and were conquered by the beauty of the place and the hospitality of the people, who, on that occasion, killed the fatted calf and invited to the feast the rich and poor, the lame and halt and the blind — in fact everybody who had, or who could influence or control, a vote. The smoke of the sacrifice of whole sheep and huge quarters of beef ascended to heaven freighted with the prayers of the Santa Rosans to dispose the hearts and ballots of the people in their favor, and, like the pious Greeks of old on similar occasions, when the smoke had ceased to ascend and the offering was cooked to a turn, they partook of the sacrificial meat — the incense of which had tickled the nostrils, whetting at the same time their appetites and their devotion.”

At this Fourth of July barbecue some 500 people were present from all over the county and great enthusiasm prevailed. The oration was delivered by the Rev. A. A. Guernsey. The Declaration of Independence was read by James Prewett and the speakers were Joe Neville, John Robinson and Sylvester Ballou. The feast was held in an oak grove on Commodore Elliott’s place.

The Santa Rosa of half a century ago receiving the distinction of becoming the seat of government of the imperial county of the state was a far different place from what it is today. Then there was a Masonic hall, a store and two or three other buildings. Nevertheless there was great rejoicing, when on that fair eighteenth day of September the county fathers in meeting at Sonoma formally declared that Santa Rosa was to henceforth be the county seat.

At the golden jubilee celebration this year there will be a number of men gathered here who saw the transference of the county seat to Santa Rosa. It should be made a memorable occasion.

Just what form the jubilee celebration shall take will be a matter to be determined. Several prominent citizens who were seen Thursday were enthusiastically in favor of having an appropriate celebration of the day in Santa Rosa. September 18, 1854 was Santa Rosa’s and Sonoma county’s “Admission Day” into the after progress and prosperity which is hers today and which will continue. Much could be made of such a celebration and its importance would be felt as a great, attraction towards advertising the products of Sononia county.